Page 74 of The Auction
“I’ll pay,” I said, my breath hollowed out. “You go.”
He took the wire from my hands and I thought, I have no idea what comes next. The way he looked at me, like I’d betrayed him, was gutting. He turned his head away from me, that muscle in his jaw ticking overtime.
“I thought…yeah,” he said. “I thought wrong.”
He left the store and my first instinct was to run after him. To explain what I was doing. Why I was doing it. There was no emotion in any of this. I hadn’t betrayed him. I’d just wanted to see how kissing was different.
I was twenty-one and I’d only kissed one guy!
Two guys. Now you’ve kissed two guys.
I thought I was going to be sick on the floor of aisle six.
I sped walked up to the cash register.Kevin, to his credit, said nothing. Just rang me up for the chicken coop wire and took my debit card.
For a half a second I thought it might be declined. As if Creed could have gotten to the bank that fast to lock me out. Either it hadn’t occurred to him, or it hadn’t been enough time.
Once the card pad beeped approved, I bolted out of the store and made my way to my truck. I hopped in like I was being chased. And in some ways, it felt like I was.
Like time was racing against me.
He was going to have all this time to think, without even hearing my explanation.
“It was a stupid thing,” I said, practicing my apology. “It didn’t mean anything, I just wanted to see…”
Ugh. It sounded lame, even to my own ears.
I pulled the truck up next to his and ran inside the house.
“Creed! Creed!”
Either he wasn’t talking to me or he wasn’t inside. Having perfected the silent treatment with him months ago, I knew that it worked better when he could see me. Then I remembered what he said about running out of wire for the coop. He’d want to finish that job.
Bolting out back, I headed toward the structure appended to the barn. He was there with a pair of pliers in one hand, bending the wire into shape to form a separate cage for the rooster.
“It didn’t mean anything,” I said, out of breath. “It was just a stupid experiment.”
He said nothing.
“You were my only kiss and I wanted to find out if-”
He stopped me with one look. He wasn’t pissed. He wasn’t ready to kill. He was just…over it.
“You said I’m free to fuck whoever I want, right?”
“I…don’t…”
“After we got married. You said you didn’t care if I got some action on the side. You’ve been cock teasing me for weeks, and now I know this shit ain’t happening here, so I’m getting some ass elsewhere. So you need to be cool with that.”
I blinked. “No, you’re not listening. What happened with Kevin…”
“Fucking Pimplefuckingface,” he laughed. Only it didn’t sound funny. “You don’t have to worry about it. Message received, loud and clear. I just hope you’ll respect my privacy. I’m not going to some no-tell motel to spare your feelings. You hear me bring someone home, stay up in your fucking room.”
“Creed,” I barked. “No. That’s not what that was. I wasn’t…cheating on you! Or some shit like that. It was just…”
“An experiment,” he repeated.
“Yes!” He finally understood.
